Conventional hollow profiles with flange are generally extruded. In automobile construction, the flange is in this case used for joining the hollow profile to further parts of the vehicle. An extruded hollow profile with flange has the disadvantage, however, that the hollow profile can be bent and/or expanded only with great difficulty, since on the one hand the root of the flange on the hollow profile--also referred to as the junction--acts almost as it were like a tie bar against the shaping force and on the other hand the material accumulation at this junction and the flange itself do not allow adequate expansions for shaping reliably to the requirements of the process. To do so in the case of an enlargement in cross section, the material required for this change would have to be taken completely from the region underneath the junction. On account of the increased extent to which the wall is made thinner as a result, leading quickly to failure of the component during shaping, this considerably restricts the degree of enlargement.
It is known from DE 195 05 364 A1 in the case of a hollow profile for a motor vehicle body to integrate functional parts such as a guide rail or a thickened running surface by roll-forming the hollow profile from a sheet bar.
The invention is based on the object of presenting a method by means of which a hollow profile with flange can be produced in a simple way to the requirements of the process, on which profile great enlargements and/or dimensional changes in cross section have to be performed with respect to an initial form to achieve the desired final form.
The present invention is aimed at one or more of the problems identified above.